Jay Busbee – Yahoo Sports

No matter how promising a young Chicago Bulls basketball player might be, he’ll never wear the number 23. Same thing with rookies for the Yankees and Broncos and the number 7, or a Lakers kid and the number 32. Icons wore those numbers, and closed the door on anyone ever doing so again.

NASCAR has its own icons, drivers who fundamentally altered the way the sport runs. And yet not only are their numbers not retired, they’re still very much in use. Richard Petty’s famous 43 has passed from driver to — let’s be charitable — less-than-Petty driver for years. And now, the most famous number in NASCAR — the black No. 3 of Dale Earnhardt — is returning to the track every single week.

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